Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill-Fortune by Kate Griffin Read Free Book Online Page A

boards creak beyond the door I tightened my grip. I tried to bring Joey’s face to mind. The handsome laughing brother who brought me ribbons and trinkets. The golden lad who held court at The Lamb. The boy who could winkle a smile out of Ma on the bleakest days.
    But the pictures kept dissolving and breaking apart.
    For two years I’d thought Joey was dead. And in a way he was – the brother I thought I knew was gone. I wasn’t sure who was coming through that door. Truly, until that moment, I hadn’t allowed myself to really think about what this meeting might bring.
    There was a murmur of conversation outside and I felt my stomach fold upon itself as I recognised a voice.
    ‘ Je vais traiter plus tard, Monseigneur .’ The old man opened the door and bowed as someone dressed in a long dark blue dressing gown stepped into the room.
    ‘Joey!’
    I leapt up, scattering cushions to the floor, and ran to him.
    He didn’t come to meet me. In fact, when I reached out to take him in my arms he stepped back. I felt something hard forming in my throat. I had to keep swallowing to keep myself breathing.
    ‘It’s me – Kitty. Don’t you recognise me?’
    My brother didn’t answer, he just stared at me and then he looked across at Lucca, who was standing now, turning the brim of his hat around and around. Lucca tilted his head. ‘Joseph.’
    I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes, as the smoke from the fire was irritating, and then, confused, I held out my hand in a sort of formal greeting. It was still shaking and I tried to steady it.
    ‘Joey?’
    A part of me watched myself from somewhere high above and wondered what on earth I was thinking. Jesus! The brother I’d mourned until my eyelids were scalded by the salt of my tears was standing right there in front of me and I was offering him my hand like a simpering charity type. Then again, what was he thinking? When he didn’t take my hand I pulled it back and hid it behind me. I felt a wetness on my cheeks as the tears I didn’t expect brimmed over. I looked down quickly so he couldn’t see.
    ‘Your hand! The fingers – they’re all there?’ I blurted the words out before I could stop myself. It was a ridiculous thing to notice at such a time, but all the same, Lady Ginger had lied to me about that too. She hadn’t cut off his ring finger after all. It was there on the end of his hand.
    If Joey wondered what I was on about he didn’t let on. Instead he walked past me into the room and stood in front of the fire with his back to us both.
    ‘I thought I made it clear to you.’ His voice was crisp.
    ‘That you were dead? Oh yes – that was very clear.’ I wiped the tears off my face and went to stand close behind him, so close I could smell the floral cologne on his skin. I was beginning to feel the flarings of something different now.
    ‘I wasn’t talking to you.’ Joey didn’t turn to look at me. ‘I was talking to Mr Fratelli, who should not have brought you here.’ That came out much more cultured than anything he’d said in Limehouse. My brother spoke like a toff.
    I glanced at Lucca, who was still fiddling with the hat like an infant with a comfort rag.
    ‘I didn’t, Joseph. I didn’t even know where you were.’
    ‘Then what is this? Why are you here?’
    Joey span about now. In the firelight his face looked old, much older than his twenty years. Lucca shook his head. The hat dropped to his feet as he spread his hands wide. ‘I should go. I should not be here now. This is not my story. Fannella – you must tell him. I will send word when I have found a room.’
    ‘No!’ Of a sudden I had a clarity. I was standing in a room in Paris with the two people who meant more to me than anyone else in the world, only one of them, my actual brother, was acting like we’d never met. I didn’t understand what was going on, but one thing I knew for certain was that I didn’t want Lucca to leave.
    ‘Stay, Lucca. I haven’t got any secrets to